Business this week

America's House of Representatives voted to bail out two of Detroit's carmakers. The legislation proposes extending emergency short-term loans to cash-strapped General Motors and Chrysler. During negotiations the White House insisted that the companies be required to make drastic changes to their operations and reduce costs by next spring, or risk losing access to the public funding; there will be a “car tsar”. Some Republican senators threatened to delay, or possibly kill, the bill. See article

Volkswagen made public its application for help from Germany's €500 billion ($650 billion) bank bail-out programme. The carmaker's affiliated bank and financial-services units both want state loan guarantees.

Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection. The company, which publishes the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and other big-city newspapers, was bought by Sam Zell, a property mogul, last year and is saddled with some $13 billion in debt. See article

The New York Times said its parent company might raise up to $225m against the value of the newspaper's new headquarters. In common with most of its rivals, the “Gray Lady” is reeling from a sharp decline in advertising revenues and readers.

Merrill Lynch said John Thain had “requested that he receive no bonus” this year for his work as chairman and chief executive. Earlier, New York state's attorney-general, who is investigating executive-compensation practices, had written to the company and thundered that he found it “nothing less than shocking” that Mr Thain was said to be seeking a $10m bonus. Merrill Lynch was forced to sell itself to Bank of America during Wall Street's meltdown in September. Morgan Stanley promptly announced that its chief executive, John Mack, would also get no bonus for 2008.

Yields on three-month Treasuries fell, at one point reaching -0.01%, a stark indication of investors' continued wariness of risk. Speculation increased that the Federal Reserve might make further unconventional interventions to push down long-term borrowing costs. The central bank's Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on December 15th and 16th.

A blue Christmas

Payroll employment in America fell by 533,000 in November, the biggest monthly drop since December 1974. The unemployment rate crept up to 6.7%. A broader government measure of joblessness, which includes people who want a job but have given up looking for work, rose to 12.5%.

Sony laid out another cost-cutting strategy, in which it will shed at least 16,000 permanent and temporary jobs, pull back on investments and outsource some production. The Japanese consumer-electronics company, along with its Asian rivals, is suffering from the global economic downturn. It has already halved its annual profit forecast amid falling demand for its Bravia LCD televisions.

Rio Tinto also unveiled a plan to rein in costs. The Anglo-Australian mining company, which spent most of this year resisting a takeover bid from BHP Billiton, is reducing its capital expenditure and selling assets to pay down $10 billion in debt by the end of next year. It will cut 14,000 jobs. See article

Other companies announcing big rounds of job cuts this week included Dow Chemical, which is losing 5,000 employees and closing 20 plants in America and Europe; 3M, where 2,300 positions will go; and Anheuser-Busch InBev, which is axing 6% of its American workforce. Three-quarters of the job losses at the brewer, the product of a big recent merger, will fall on St Louis. Some 30,000 jobs were at risk at Britain's Woolworths as the retail chain, which is in administration, rolled out a closure plan.

Libya expressed an interest in taking a stake of up to 10% in Eni. The Italian oil and gas company is the largest and longest established foreign oil company in Libya, which has sought new international investments over the past two years after a thaw in its relations with the West.

Those were the days, my friend

The buy-out of BCE was finally terminated after auditors ascertained the transaction would make Bell Canada's parent company insolvent. It was first announced in June 2007, at the tail-end of a private-equity boom and at about the time that the credit crunch started. The deal was worth around C$50 billion ($40 billion).

Playboy advertised for a new chief executive when Christie Hefner said she was stepping down. Ms Hefner, the daughter of the magazine's founder, Hugh Hefner, wants to leave the world of adult entertainment to become involved in public service.